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PENSIONS 



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PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS 






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Pensions for public school teachers 



[An address by Charles L Ames principal of the 
Brown school Hartford, before the Connecticut woman's 
council of education at Hartford May 4 1912. 

The Connecticut woman's council of education is an 
affiliated organization of the Association of collegiate 
alumnae, Federation of women's clubs, Congress of 
mothers, Women's Christian temperance union. Woman's 
relief corps. New Haven, Mt Holj'oke association, Con- 
necticut state teachers league, Daughters of the Amer- 
ican revolution, and Hartford college club, representing 
in all about thirty thousand Connecticut women.] 

An old Hindoo proverb says : " Every undertaking is involved 
in its faults as a fire in its smoke." In this discussion I shall 
not say much about the smoke or faults in the maintenance of 
a pension system, but shall endeavor to disclose the fire, or spark 
of life that is there. In the business world the fire is already 
burning brightly, being clearly seen in the many pension systems 
maintained by large corporations for their employees ; and, as 
business sets the pace today for efficiency, I shall speak first of 
the growth of the pension idea in the business world of this 
country, during the last fourteen years, and second of pensions 
for public school teachers. 

Until within a few years the only pensions paid in this 
country have been paid to soldiers and sailors, the survivors of 
the wars, holy and unholy, that this country has carried on. 
While we believe that the soldier should be pensioned on account 
of the peculiar dangers to which he has been exposed, let us 
recognize the fact that the "man behind the gun," ready to 
defend his country from martial foe, is not so vitally necessary 
to the perpetuity of our government as is the teacher before the 
child. One is an occasional necessity, the other is a constant 
necessity. 



4 



THE PENSION IDEA 



In 1898 the pension idea in its broader aspect was practi- 
cally foreign to this country, the B & O being the only railroad 
then maintaining a pension system for its employees. Since 
1898, pension systems have been established by the leading rail- 
roads of the country, so that at the present time nearly fifty 
per cent of the railway employees in this country are working 
under a pension system., and in most cases the pension fund is 
maintained exclusively by the corporations. Let me name some 
of these railroad corporations : the Pennsylvania road, the Union 
Pacific, the B & O, the Southern Pacific, the New York cen- 
tral and Hudson river, the Grand trunk lines, the Boston and 
Maine, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western, the New York, 
New Haven and Hartford, the Metropolitan street railway com- 
pany of New York city, and so on. Besides, many industrial con- 
cernsi, commercial and banking houses, maintain pension systems 
for their employees. On January i 1911 the United States 
steel corporation inaugurated its new automatic pension system 
for its 200,000 employees under the non-assessment plan. The 
firm of our own Cheney brothers of South Manchester has 
recently established a system of industrial insurance and pensions 
for its employees on the assessment plan. (Later I shall say a 
word about the two systems.) 

AN AUTOMATIC SYSTEM 

The automatic pension system maintained by the Pennsyl- 
vania railroad company is one of the best in the United States. It 
affects its 150,000 employees, from the baggage-clerk to the 
president of the road. Every employee who has served the 
company thirty years or longer, and who becomes incapacitated 
for further service, may be retired at 65 years of age. At 70 
years of age, every employee goes automatically upon the retired 
list, whether incapacitated or not. Those that retire receive 
different pensions according to their position and salary. For 
every year of service rendered the company, a pensioner, what- 
ever his position may have been, receives one per cent of his 
average salary for the last ten years before retirement. For 
instance, if his average salary for the last ten years has been 
$2,000, and he has served the company thirty years, he will 



receive a pension of $600, that is, one per cent for each year of 
service, or thirty per cent in all. If he has served the company 
forty years, he will receive forty per cent of his average salary 
for the last ten years, or $800; fifty years, fifty per cent, or 
$1,000. Those that are retired have the right to engage in any 
outside work at whatever compensation they can secure. A pen- 
sioner may, and may not, be incapacitated for further service. 
He may be in good condition, both physically and mentally, but 
retire he must when he reaches three score years and ten. I 
have given these facts about the Pennsylvania road for two 
reasons, first to illustrate an automatic pension system, and 
second to affirm from the testimony of experts that the Penn- 
sylvania road has one of the best railway systems in the United 
States, if not in the world. Its roadbed, equipment, and service 
are of the best. In passing, permit me to state that the Penn- 
sylvania road pays the entire cost of pensions. There are no 
assessments. 

WHY IT IS PRACTICAL 

So far I have touched upon the bare statement of facts re- 
garding the pension movement in the United States. It may be 
well for us to consider briefly the reasons for the maintenance 
of pvension systems by these large corporations. Evidently the 
soldier's pension is on account of service rendered. He has 
risked his life to uphold the honor and integrity of his country, 
and the nation regards' him as a hero deserving something more 
than the regular compensation, a principle to which we. all 
heartily assent. Concerning the employees of these large cor- 
porations, the case is different. The humanitarian principle is 
not involved in their pension system. On the contrary, the main- 
tenance of an automatic pension system is a matter of economics. 
In other words, these corporations regard their pension systems 
as a business proposition, a good investment. Regarding the 
effect of a retirement system for its employees, the officers of 
the Grand trunk lines say: 

" It has been stated that the existence of a pension acts as a 
detriment to efficient service owing to the tendency on the part 
of an employee, approaching the retirement age, to become lax 
in the performance of duty, in consequence of the knowledge that 
he will soon be able to leave the service and draw a pension. The 
experience of this company has demonstrated that such reasoning 



is entirely fallacious. Every company and corp>oration having 
a retirement system in operation regards it as a good business 
investment, without considering the humanitarian principle 
involved/' 

ATTRACTS THE BEST 

The j>ension system attracts the most capable and ambitious 
men and secures from them their most efficient service. The 
corporation can always feel reasonably sure that its entire prop- 
erty is being managed by men at their period of greatest effi- 
ciency. Under the present competitive system, a company wants 
employees whose eyes are not always on the clock, lest they work 
a minute over time, but employees who will talk of " our com- 
pany," and who will have the spirit to lie awake nights devising 
new ways for increasing the business. We do not claim that 
pensions are the only attractive feature of a system like the 
above, for good salaries, reading-rooms, and everything to better 
the social conditions of the employees will accompany the pen- 
sion system. The laws of gravitation affect wage-earners as 
well as other objects in nature, and the best talent will inevitably 
gravitate towards the most satisfactory terms of employment. 

PERTINENT QUESTIONS 

In a few years all of the employees of the corporations of 
this country, railway, industrial and commercial, will, I predict, 
be under a pension system maintained entirely, or partly, by the 
corporations themselves. In view of the above I regard the fol- 
lowing as pertinent questions: 

(i) Are the employees of these corporations serving under 
a system of organized charity? Emphatically they are not. 
(2) Is the humanitarian principle involved in their pension sys- 
tems? I think not. (3) Why do these corporations maintain pen- 
sion systems for their employees? Mainly as an economic measure. 
(4) Does the principle of pensions hold good in the pensioning 
of public school teachers? We believe that it does. If a cor- 
poration secures a better mechanic, engineer, or superintendent 
by a profit-sharing system, or by a pension system, or by both, as 
is now the case with the United States steel corporation, may 
we not conclude that the same principle will hold true in securing 
a teacher? The mechanic is engaged in some mechanical busi- 
ness, the teacher is engaged in the business of teaching, both 
susceptible to all the allurements of salary, pension and hours 



of labor. The Pennsylvania road cannot afford to have its rail- 
way system managed by any employees except those most effi- 
cient and at their most efficient time of life. A decrepit or in- 
competent engineer might cost the company in one hour more 
than its pension system would cost in a year. The mechanic 
and engineer are employed by a corporation chartered by the 
state; the teacher is employed by the state, or by a town or city 
under statutory law. Let the state, which makes compulsory 
the maintenance of public schools, which makes compulsory the 
attendance of children between seven and sixteen years of age, 
and which expends annually millions of dollars for the support 
of these public schools, establish a pension system for its public 
school teachers. The business of a great corporation is 
usually managed by shrewd business men, who constantly 
re-adjust matters in order to secure greater efficiency. 
Many of these business men are ever on the outlook for newer 
and better methods, for more efficient employees, and for a 
better product. The schools are often held back on conservative 
lines, by their own inertia, by precedent and school traditions, 
by obsolete methods, by politicians, or by communities sparing 
in the expenditure of money, so that a high efficiency is not 
always attained. If the schools are run more as a matter of 
business, on the best business methods, higher efficiency will be 
secured. 

PENSION SYSTEM ESTABLISHED 

Second, pension systems for public school teachers have al- 
ready been established by state, municipality, or voluntary associ- 
ation in twenty-two of our states. State pension systems main- 
tained exclusively by the state are in force in Rhode Island and 
Maryland. New Jersey has a state pension system under the com- 
pulsory assessment plan, the state itself making an annual appro- 
priation of $3,000 for administrative purposes. Virginia makes 
an annual appropriation of $5,000 to its pension fund. Massa- 
chusetts allows all cities and towns, other than Boston, to pay 
pensions from public funds, providing any city or town votes to 
do so. New York state administers a pension system on the 
voluntary assessment plan. 

Pension systems are also maintained by the following munici- 
palities: Greater New York, Albany, Buffalo, Elmira, Rochester, 
Schenectady, Syracuse, Troy, Yonkers, Providence, Boston, 
Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Pittsburg, Charleston (S C), New 
Orleans, Cincinnati, Qeveland, Columbus (O), Indianapolis, 
Chicago^ Milwaukee, Detroit, Minneapolis, St Paul, Duluth, 



8 

Omalia, Denver, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, New Haven, 
and so on. 

IMPORTANT FACTS 

Permit me at this point to submit for your consideration 
several facts pertaining to the schools of Connecticut. 

(i) In Connecticut, for the year 1909-10, there were 5302 
public School teachers, 4950 women and 352 men; (2) the 
average salary per month for women was $54.51, for men, $123; 
(3) in 1909-10, the salaries of women teachers in 134 of the 168 
towns in the state averaged less than $350 a year; (4) in the 
same year the salaries of women teachers in 44 of those towns 
averaged less than $300 a year; (5) in 1909-10, it was found 
on investigation that of the more than 5000 teachers then em- 
ployed in the state, only 250, or one in every 20, had taught 30 
years or more, thus showing that very few teachers ipake 
teaching a life-work. If the teachers' pension bill, introduced 
in 1909, had been enacted into law that year, only about 40 
teachers would have retired with a pension. (6) Thousands 
of teachers enter the profession to teach only a few years, the 
young women expecting to retire to change their names, or to 
enter more remunerative business pursuits, the young men to 
change their vocations. (7) The number of graduates from 
our normal schools for the year 1909-10 was 264. The number 
of new teachers required each year is 450 or more. From what 
source shall we make up the deficiency? From Rhode Island? 
That state has a state pension system for teachers. Its first 
pensions were paid in 1908 to 21 teachers, 20 women and one 
man. Shall we make up the deficiency from Massachusetts? 
The salaries in that state are larger than those in Connecticut, 
In 1909-10 the average salary per month for women, in Massa- 
chusetts, was $61.82, for men, $152.96; besides, Massachusetts 
has an* optional pension system for every town and city except- 
ing Boston. Many towns and cities have already adopted it. 
Boston has a pension system of its own. Shall we make up 
the deficiency from New York and New Jersey? Ask the super- 
intendents in southwestern Connecticut whether or not that 
could be done. Ask the superintendent of South Norwalk who 
last year lost 28 per cent of his teachers. Connecticut has 
become the recruiting station for all of our adjoining states. 
At a public hearing at the Capitol Hartford in 1909, Superin- 
tendent William H Maxwell of New York city said : " New 
York city has many of your best teachers, and will continue to 
get more of them every year, unless you do better by your 
teachers and offer them some inducement to remain at home." 
For several years, the New Jersey superintendents have come to 



Connecticut to hire the best of the graduates of our normal 
schools, and others with larger experience. Connecticut has 
become a sort of training-school for teachers for the adjoining 
states. What then is the source of supply? Partly from normal 
schools, partly from high schools, whose graduates have had 
no normal training, and partly from the state at large, many 
of whose young women without academic or normal training 
" keep " school in the country districts. 

At that hearing Superintendent Maxwell claimed that the state 
had made a monopoly of school education, a statement which at- 
tracted the attention of " Trumbull ", who in his letter to the New 
York Herald said : " Superintendent Maxwell's view is particularly 
interesting, because it presents a new phase of the rights of the 
school teacher, as a result of the action of the state in undertaking 
to give education free. In other words, he contends that the 
state has made a monopoly of school education, and has, there- 
fore, taken from teachers the advantage of competition which 
prevails in other professions. It has brought salaries to a level, 
which is more or less arbitrary, and has, therefore, driven from 
the profession men and women whose tastes lie in that direction. 
If such a pension as is proposed is a means of alleviating the 
monopolistic situation, there should be little hesitation in adopting 
it. Then, too, there remains all of the time the impressive fact 
that the lowering of the standard of teaching is a serious thing 
for the state in which it occurs." 

WAGES PAID WOMEN 

In 1909 a committee, of which one of your own members was 
chairman, made an investigation of the matter of wages paid 
women of average ability in other vocations than that of teach- 
ing, and submitted its report from which I quote : " Summariz- 
ing, your committee finds, first, that with equal training, many 
women of average ability can earn in the business world, with 
less nerve strain, as much as a teacher, or more; second, that, 
with no academic or special training at all, many young women 
of ordinary ability can earn nearly as much as a teacher who has 
attended a high school four years and a normal school two years ; 
third, that there is a scarcity of trained teachers, a condition of 
things that calls for serious consideration on the part of every 
community." 



lO 

"The reasons for the scarcity of teachers are, first, the finan- 
cial attraction of the business world; second, a real liking of 
some women for business pursuits; and, third, the chief reason, 
the prevailing low rate of wages in the teaching profession." 

Thousands of shop girls receive more money j>er year than 
hundreds of teachers in the state; trained nurses receive from 
$i8 to $25 per week; manicurists from $12 per week upwards, 
and there are many teachers who do not receive $12 per week 
for the 52 weeks in the year. We must remember that the ex- 
penses of living continue throughout the year, even if a young 
woman does teach only 30 or 36 weeks. The problem of the 
state is to get and keep a sufficient number of trained teachers. 
We need some plan which will (a) attract able persons to the 
work of teaching; (b) make it for their advantage to excel in 
their work; (c) afford inducements for their remaining long in 
the service. Superintendent Smith of Maine says : " If our 
teaching is to be held at the highest point of efficiency, the pro- 
fession must be able to recruit for itself the choicest natural 
ability and the most efficient training. These are not to be 
assumed unless that profession shall offer a greater security 
for future returns. A teachers' pensioM system gives this 
security." 

Let us face the facts. Teachers of experience today are 
advising their younger sisters and nieces not to enter the teach- 
ing profession. The brightest and strongest personalities are en- 
tering into business pursuits which pay better and require less 
nerve strain than teaching. The list of applicants for positions 
in the business world is large, while the list of applicants for 
teachers' positions is small. Summarizing again, we find that the 
salaries of teachers in Connecticut are too small, that there is a 
scarcity of desirable teachers, that the normal schools do not 
graduate yearly a sufficient number of teachers for the positions 
that are vacant, that the allurements of salary and pension in 
adjoining states draw away many of our best teachers, and that 
the lucrative positions in the business world are too attractive for 
the ambitious young woman to resist. What shall be done to 
counteract all of this? This is up to you and every community 
in the state. I have given you the facts which do not admit of 
contradiction. Teachers are underpaid, teachers are attracted 
to other states, teachers are entering into business pursuits, and 



II 

there is already a scarcity of teachers. In his last annual report, 
Dr P P Claxton, United States commissioner of education, 
says : " Teachers in the United States are underpaid, and, for 
the salaries paid in several of the states, the services of men and 
women of good native ability, with sufficient scholarship, train- 
ing, and experience, to enable them to do satisfactory work, can- 
not be secured. The average wage for public school teachers all 
over the country, including teachers in the wealthy cities and in 
the high schools, is less than $500, about $3 a day for the actual 
number of days taught, or about $1.60 a day for the actual work- 
ing days of the year. Clearly there must be a large increase in 
the salaries of teachers before we may expect the efficient ser- 
vice which is desirable." Mr Alfred Moseley, the head of the 
British educational commission, in an address at Stanford 
University, said : " America owes her position among the nations 
of the earth to her system of free education. American teachers, 
however, are grossly underpaid, and, unless salaries are raised, 
your system will fail. If America fails, the world will go back 
to autocracy and the sword." 

Salaries have been raised in several cities and towns of 
Connecticut during the last year or two. In Meriden for in- 
stance the salaries of the teachers for the first seven grades 
range from $480 to $720 according to the teacher's experience and 
efficiency; in New Haven, the salaries for the same grades range 
from $450 to $750; in Bridgeport, from $500 to $800; in Hart- 
ford, from $500 to $900. That is a good beginning, but we 
must not stop until teachers throughout the state shall receive 
an adequate compensation, and until every superannuated teacher 
can retire from the school-room, after thirty or forty years of 
service, with an annuity that shall support her in her declining- 
years. Why? To give her a reward? Not at all. To make 
her an object of charity? Far from it. To increase the efficiency 
of our schools ? Most emphatically, yes. 

In all of this discussion of salaries and pensions let us keep 
clearly in mind that the children of the state constitute the objec- 
tive point in the whole pension movement. For one reason or 
another a few teachers are indifferent to this matter of pensions. 
They may regard their eligibility to pensions so remote, or their 
matrimonial prospects so bright, that pensions do not appeal to 
them. They may think that they would become objects of charity. 



12 

but employees of corporations and professors in college, who are 
now on the pension list, do not think so. Their retirement with 
a pension was a matter of economics, no thought whatever being 
given to sentiment, benevolence or reward. The pensions under 
the Carnegie Foundation have already made the position of col- 
lege professorships more attractive, and the teaching staff more 
efficient. A state pension system will do the same for our public 
schools. 

THE INITIATIVE 

Who shall take the initiative in this pension movement? Re- 
member that this is a question of economics and not a granting 
of favors. The teacher is not a suppliant but a servant, and the 
better the servant the better the service. In view of what I have 
said, I am fully convinced that the people of the state, outside 
of the teaching profession, should take the initiative in this pen- 
sion movement. England, Mr Moseley's own country, pen- 
sions its elementary teachers ; Sweden, which has one of the best 
educational systems in Europe, pensions its teachers; Germany, 
France, Austria, Italy, and the Netherlands, do the same; Russia, 
Portugal, and Spain do not pension the teachers of their elemen- 
tary schools. But it remains for Connecticut, a state of great 
wealth and influence, one of the thirteen original states, the Con- 
stitution state, to hesitate to do what the Netherlands did in 
1855, France in 1876, and Italy in 1878, namely, establish pen- 
sion systems for teachers. 

With the world coming to our doors, ignorant of our customs, 
laws, and language, our public school system will be put to its 
severest test, and therefore should receive most generous sup- 
port from every community. 

PENSION SYSTEMS 

There are really but two plans for pensioning employees — and 
I include teachers — the assessment or participating plan, and the 
non-assessment plan. With the non-assessment plan in force, 
all of the teachers would be subject to its provisions, the pension 
fund being maintained entirely by the state, city, or corporation. 
Under the assessment plan, membership may be voluntary or 
compulsory. The voluntary plan is often a failure and the com- 
pulsory plan meets with opposition. The teachers of Minne- 
apolis, who were under a compulsory assessment plan, took their 



13 

case to the supreme court, which declared the law unconstitu- 
tional; the teachers of Toledo, Ohio, under the same system, ap- 
pealed to the supreme court which declared the law unconstitu- 
tional. The teachers of New Jersey, under essentially the same 
plan, appealed to the supreme court which upheld the law, and 
the teachers had to pay their assessments. In Chicago, the 
coercive feature first adopted has since been eliminated. There 
are many objections to the assessment plan. Shall the young 
lady teacher wearing her engagement ring be subjected to an 
annual assessment for a fund from which there is only one 
chance in twenty that she will ever draw one cent? Shall the 
young man studying his law books every evening be subjected 
to an annual assessment for a fund for the benefit of others ? If 
the assessment is a charity contribution, then it should be volun- 
tary; if it is a business proposition, then the money must in part 
be refunded at the option of the contributor. It is for these 
reasons that I have heretofore advocated a state pension with 
no assessments. The pension bill presented to the legislature *. 
called for that kind of a pension. We knew that Maryland and 
Rhode Island maintained such state systems, and we saw no 
reason why Connecticut should not do the same. Recently, how- 
ever, the Supreme court of this state has handed down a decision 
which declares the soldier's pension law unconstitutional. Prom- 
inent lawyers in the state believe that this decision can be applied 
to the whole matter of state pensions from public funds, for any 
one person, or for any class of persons. I am not a lawyer, but 
permit me, however, to quote from the decision and make one 
or two statements. The court says : " The test of the act before 
us is, will it serve a recognized object of government, and will it 
directly promote the welfare of the people of the state in equal 
measure ? " On this point let me say that a state pension system 
is proposed as an economic measure, therefore, directly promot- 
ing the welfare of the people of the state. The fact that the 
brightest and strongest personalities are entering business pur- 
suits, thereby causing a scarcity of desirable teachers, is an 
element of danger to our public school system. Again, the 
soldiers' pension act said that any resident of the state, who had 
served in the army or the navy of the United States during the 
Civil war, should be entitled to an annual pension of thirty dollars. 
Under this act, a soldier, whose service was to the credit of other 



14 

states, but who is now a resident of Connecticut, would receive 
" state aid ". On the other hand, a soldier, who served to the 
credit of Connecticut, but who now is not a resident of the state, 
would be denied any " state aid ". Again I quote from the 
court's decision : " Far from there being a course and usage 
sanctioning this attempt to tax the people of one state for the ser- 
vices rendered in the Civil war by the soldiers and sailors of 
another state, we find no attempt of like character in Connecticut 
or in any other state of the union." With reference to this matter 
of service, may I say that under a state pension system for 
teachers, no teacher shall be entitled to a pension whose ser- 
vice in teaching shall have been less, than thirty or thirty-five 
years, the last twenty or twenty-five years of which shall have 
been in this state. 

In view of what has been presented in this paper regarding 
state pensions for teachers in other states and in view of the fact 
that the whole pension movement is an economic measure for 
a public purpose, I shall still advocate a state pension on the non- 
assessment plan. Municipal systems would pension the teachers 
of cities only leaving out in the cold many excellent teachers 
of long and successful experience in the small towns, from which 
have come many of our leading business men, scholars and 
^statesmen. 

If state pensions under the non-assessment plan cannot be 
secured, then what? Time will not permit me to discuss in 
detail any other plan for pensioning teachers. I believe however 
that we could work for a system that will call (i) for voluntary 
assessments from all persons now engaged in teaching (2) for 
compulsory assessments from all teachers entering the profession 
after the law is enacted, with a provision for liberal refunds for 
those who retire early from teaching, and (3) for state aid of 
from ten to twenty thousand dollars annually for a term of years 
until a large pension fund is secured. A somewhat similar sys- 
tem is now maintained in Virginia, which makes an annual appro- 
priation of $5,000 to the state pension fund. 

DIVERSITY OF VIEWS 

No plan should be adopted until there has been a thorough 
study of the whole subject and that plan should receive the cor- 
dial support of the teachers of the state. Teachers hold such 



15 

varied views on this subject of pensions that I begin to think 
that we shall need an adjustable system. Some teachers do not 
believe in a state pension with no assessments for they think 
that that will make them objects of charity. They forget that 
ex-president Eliot of Harvard university now receives a pension 
of $4,000; they forget that hundreds of officers and thousands of 
employees of our large corporations are the beneficiaries from 
a pension fund towards which they may not have made any con- 
tributions; they forget that many professors in college and uni- 
versity have been retired w4th a pension from the Carnegie 
Foundation; and they forget the basic principle underlying pen- 
sions, vie, an economic measure. Other teachers do not believe 
in assessments for they are sure that they w411 not teach long, 
that the wxdding-ring will surely be worn, or that a good business 
position will be ready for them. They may teach longer than 
they now think that they will ; besides, liberal refunds can be paid 
to teachers who retire from the profession. Still other teachers 
believe that all teachers eligible to a pension should receive the 
same pension irrespective of the number of years in the service 
or the salary received while teaching. Pensions seldom exceed 
fifty per cent of the average salary for the last five or ten years 
before retirement. Under the plan suggested by these teachers, 
the pensions for the teachers in those 44 towns where the 
average salary is less than $300 a year, would be the same as for 
the teachers in more responsible positions with salaries of $600 
to $1000. If we should establish a uniform pension, based on 
the salary of $300, the pension, $150, would be much too small 
for the higher-priced teachers. If we base the pension on the 
salary of the teacher receiving $800, then the pension, $400, 
would be larger than the average salary paid in 134 towns of the 
state. Such a system would be ridiculous in the extreme. We 
must remember that the contributions or assessments under a 
pension system depend upon the salary and service, and may be 
one, two, or three per cent according to the length of service. 
A teacher having taught 30 years with a salary of $300 pays much 
less into the fund than a teacher who has taught 40 years with a 
salary of $800. Why then should the pensions for these two 
teachers be the same? Their contributions were not the same. 
They might as well claim that every person in an accident should 
receive the same amount from the insurance company. All such 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



020 314 877 n 



bristling, striking views of the pension movement do not help the 
cause of pensions. Let us remember that we are not advocating 
pensions for teachers on account of a deferred salary increase, on 
account of sentiment or the humanitarian principle, but wholly as 
an economic measure. Let us remember that there are teachers 
in our schools, who, after a long successful experience, are now 
physically incapacitated for the duties of a school, and who would 
retire under a pension system. Superintendent Maxwell said 
that the retention of these teachers was really pensioning them 
at the expense of the children. Teachers have told me that they 
will be glad to retire under a pension system and give place to 
the young, vigorous teachers. 

In order to succeed we must get together on this matter. The 
constitution under which we live and the laws on our statute 
books are the result of compromise and concession. Nothing is 
gained by extremists in this pension movement. 

CONCLUSION 

Finally, I maintain that Connecticut is a state of great com- 
mercial and industrial activity and that its schools are of para- 
mount importance. Is it nothing to Connecticut that the teachers 
of the state are underpaid and that many retire from the teach- 
ing profession to enter business pursuits? Is it nothing to 
Connecticut that its best talent is attracted to adjoining states 
by larger salaries and that those states maintain pension systems 
for their teachers? Certainly such a method of procedure does 
not make for the efficiency of our public school system. Remember 
the words of Mr Moseley, the chairman of the English educa- 
tion commission, who said : " If America fails, the world will 
go back to autocracy and the sword." Give the public schools 
your generous support, attract to its service the best talent, and 
the swords shall be beaten into plowshares and the spears into 
pruning-hooks. 



"Brown school Hartford 
May 4 1912 




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